The conversations ranged in topic from racism to stereotypes perpetuated in rap music, from social responsibility to news media’s role in influencing negative perceptions.

A doctor, a teacher, a college professor, an author, a single mother, the father of a mixed-race child, a high school student, Asbury Park Press staffers and more shared their experiences as black men and women in America and on parenting young black men in America.

Here Dan Radel, 38, of Brick, shares his experience. Radel has worked for the Asbury Park Press since 2009, and has been a staff writer since 2011. He is also an adjunct history professor at Brookdale Community College since 2007. He and his wife, who is African-American, have an 8-month-old son, Emil.

“When I made up my mind that I wanted to marry my wife, I didn’t give it another thought. I knew she was the right person for me and the fact that she was black and I was white and there could be potential issues down the road was a risk I was willing to take.

My dad and I had a conversation about it standing in the parking lot outside his office before I got married. A real gut check. I wanted to hear his opinion because my actions would also affect him and the rest of my family.

He was born in 1943. I was born in 1975. So we were staring at each other from different eras. When he was a kid there was still segregation in this country. Black and white interracial marriages were not common. They have been more socially accepted in my generation. But my dad was wary of stereotypes that still exist.

“Sometimes that’s all people see,” he said.

He wanted to know about her family because when you marry, you marry your spouse’s family. Was I ready to be emerged in that? Would they accept me? As far as her family goes, her mom works for the IRS and does our taxes. I felt pretty safe about what I was getting into.

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He was only concerned for my welfare, my soon-to-be wife and any kids we had. But he was prepared to stand with me. He said to me: “If you love her, then I love her.” And that was that.

And when my wife gave birth to our son, he loved him from the first minute.

Long before my dad and I had that talk I’ve been wrestling with perceptions of race. I teach college history courses and often have to talk about the tumultuous racial issues of this country’s past. History shapes our reality so teaching it is a big responsibility.

The way I see it, in a multiracial society such as the U.S. you can either come to terms with the history, and the fact that many races live here, or you can let it pull you apart. I made peace with it.

The key for me is to not let stereotypes cloud my judgment of a person before I have the chance to speak with him or her. It’s not always easy to do. Every time there is a story involving blacks and whites in the media, we often end up examining the racial climate of the country.

In 1857 when the Dred Scott case was decided this land was deeply divided. That only tore the social fabric of the country more and four years later began the Civil War. When a story like Trayvon Martin’s comes up as it did in 2012, we are still asking ourselves if it’s our culture that’s culpable.

If I never read a news story in my life, never watched the television, listened to the radio or studied any history, never heard a stereotype, one conclusion I could draw from the contact that I’ve had with black people is that no black person ever caused me harm.

I try to live by the old saying: Believe nothing of what you hear, half of what you read, and all that you see with your own eyes.

Raising my son will be a challenge. The best way I can describe him — he’s only an infant — is that he likes to laugh a lot. My wife and I play a musical game of peek-a-boo that cracks him up.

But he sees and I’m sure he’s starting to notice that his mom and dad don’t quite look the same. He may grow up and ask about it one day.

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We all have that opportunity when our kids look to us for an answer: What do we say? Our answers are what’s going to guide the next generation.

My son needs to be exposed to both races or my wife and I fear he may identify with one more than the other. Not everyone has that obligation. The one thing I can try not to do is raise him with stereotypes. He’s a blank page. A fresh start.